South Korea eases COVID rules
South Korea began to ease its social distancing rules on March 21, with the number of new COVID-19 infections expected to peak the same week — even as the country remained a global hot spot for the virus.
The country, whose total caseload was nearing the 10-million mark, introduced moderated social distancing guidelines until April 3, according to an announcement earlier by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which projected the imminent peak in daily infections.
Under the new guideline, the limit on private gatherings was raised to eight people from the previous six. An 11 pm business curfew remained unchanged.
The infections are being fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
On March 21, the country reported 209,169 new COVID-19 cases, raising the national caseload to 9,582,815, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, or KDCA. The number was a sharp decline from the all-time high of over 600,000 recorded on March 17.
The number of new daily infections is usually lower at the beginning of the week due to fewer virus tests over the weekend.
The number of critically ill patients
was 1,130, up 97 from the previous day.
The death toll reached 12,757, up 329 from March 20, while the fatality rate remained at 0.13 percent.
Some 86.6 percent of South Korea’s 52 million people had been fully vaccinated and 63.1 percent of people had received a third jab, KDCA data showed.
The fatality rate for February dropped significantly to 0.09 percent, compared with January’s 0.31 percent, said the Ministry of Health
and Welfare. The rate of critical cases also decreased, to 0.16 percent from 0.63 percent.
Compared with the fourth wave of infections in December, the number of critically ill patients has increased by only 1.3 times, while the number of infections, as of March 17, had soared by 79 times. The ministry said the main reason is that people infected with the Omicron variant tend to show mild or no symptoms.
Nevertheless, the ministry still expected the utilization rate of facilities such as intensive care unit beds to increase further in late March and early April.
Also on March 21, South Korea lifted its nearly two-years-long policy of quarantine for international travelers. It stopped requiring a seven-day self-quarantine for fully vaccinated visitors — except for those from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Myanmar.
Kim Moon-kyu, clinical professor of the Department of Pediatrics at Yonsei University in Seoul, said it was encouraging to see a small decline after the seven-day average of cases kept rising for two months, but that it was still hard to predict just when the country would pass its peak.
“Even if we pass this peak, we need to be vigilant because we don’t know whether a new variant might emerge and we also have to care about the ICU situation,” Kim told South Korean TV network Arirang News on March 21.
Kim Woo-joo, professor of infectious diseases at Korea University Guro Hospital, said on March 17 that the government’s move of easing pandemic controls was dangerous.
Noting influenza causes about 2,000 to 3,000 deaths a year in South Korea, Kim Woo-joo said the deaths from COVID-19 have already exceeded 10,000.
“The government says the fatality rate (of COVID-19) is similar to that of influenza, but such remarks may make the public less cautious about the disease,” said Kim Woo-joo, adding that South Korea has the world’s highest number of daily new infections per million population.
Globally, as of March 22, there had been 470.8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, with more than 6 million deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
South Korea’s confirmed cases reached 9,936,540 as of March 22, with 13,141 deaths, according to the WHO.